Canon R5 hotshoe upgrade/replacement?

MarshallG wrote:

antonio-salieri wrote:

MarshallG wrote:

Smooth_J wrote:

With the newer R5 delayed, and the newer flashes coming out that have a newer hotshoe design (ie EL-5), does anyone think there will be "upgrade" program for the first generation R5 or are we forced to upgrade to say the R5c or even R5 Mark II when it comes out?

What does the fancy new hot shoe offer, besides compatibility with one flash model (which isn’t even available yet?).

The only feature that seems new is “Controllable from smartphone app,” but I’ve used enough Canon software to have little faith in it.

It can communicate with the camera more. So for example it will integrate the menus together more and so on. The shoe can also work with microphones without using another connector and so on. Nothing game-changing, though.

I don’t want to be disrespectful, but that’s a very vague answer. I’ve used Speedlights for a long time, and I’ve used the wireless transmitter. But I wouldn’t upgrade my camera and flashes for a newer hotshot design anyway. Canon still hasn’t integrated a wireless transmitter into any of their cameras, which would be interesting. But flash with built-in transmitter is pretty useless cause if I’m putting one flash off camera I’m going to put them all off camera.

It sort of has to be a vague answer, because it's a flexible connector. It's kind of like USB. It can be used to send power or operate very simple devices. But it can also be used to transfer data (like in the microphone adapters, or in the menu integration data). Basically, as long as the firmware knows how to hook into it, the device attached can communicate whatever data it wants to the camera and vice versa.

On the other hand, none of this is really necessary for flash functions. But that's why it's the multifunction hot shoe. Flashes remain what they are.

Of course, other devices can still be mounted on the shoe as well. Microphones, for example, were already commonly mounted on the shoe. They just couldn't connect through it; they had to record digital audio externally or hook into the mic jack.